A Reflection on John 9:1-41
Given at Calvary Baptist Church in Hopewell, NJ - March 2023
While reading the commentaries on this passage in the gospel of John, I noticed that nearly all of the writers were only focused on the themes of light and dark, seeing and not seeing. I understand why. Those are two major themes throughout the book of John, and it’s seen so clearly here. And they’re beautiful metaphors. They have their place and time. But I believe that there’s more to this story than just a brilliant use of metaphor and some dramatic irony. Instead, I believe that there’s also an important message here about listening and stories.
In this story that Janet read, Jesus gives sight to a man who was born blind. At the beginning of the story, when Jesus and his disciples meet the blind man, they ask Jesus why this man was born blind. They want to know: What were the reasons—the causes—behind this man’s impairment? Who is to blame? The disciples want to know whether it was the sin of the man himself or his parents, or someone else in his family that led to his blindness. While that may seem like an odd question to us today, In first-century Palestine, it actually made a lot of sense. It was understood that impairment was a punishment from God because of a person’s sins.
Jesus, though, is uninterested in fully answering their questions. He barely gives those questions the time of day. Jesus is uninterested in finding fault and pointing fingers. It’s hard to see that in our Bibles, but in the Greek, it’s much clearer. Our English translations say that he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. but it doesn’t actually say that in Greek. That little phrase—the “so that” was added later into translations. According to scholars, it could actually be translated as something like this:
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. [PERIOD] In order that God’s works might be revealed in him, we must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.”
As we can see here, Jesus isn’t concerned with the “Why?” of the situation. Instead, Jesus is concerned with the reality of the situation. He’s concerned with the person standing in front of him. In his refusal to go into the details of how and why this man is blind, Jesus is actually doing something else. He is sneakily asking a better question. Instead of “Why” or “How come?” Jesus asks, “what now?” He asks, “In the face of this reality, what now? What can I do in the here and now to support and love the person before me?” The technicalities of the disciples’ nitty gritty theological questions are not, at this moment, important. Following down that line of questioning will only get us lost in the weeds and cause us to ignore those in our midst who demand our attention. Jesus’ response, while not a question itself, helps point us to what’s really important—to our neighbors—and nudges us towards asking questions about who they are instead of what they are.
But after Jesus cures the man, those who had known him just as the “blind beggar” are only interested in the “Why?” and the “How?” They started hounding him with all sorts of questions. Are you that same guy we’ve known for so long? What happened to you? How did this happen?? Do your parents know about this? Is this real, or are you just messing with us? And question after question, he tells them the same thing. He says, “The man named Jesus cured me; I was blind, but now I see. And that’s all there is to say!” I’m sure he felt exasperated by answering the same question over and over and over again. That’s why I like to read his words with a bit of sass. Verse 27 is the best example of this. You can just hear his frustration coming off the page. Verse 27 says:
They asked him how it happened, and “He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”
I can feel that visceral frustration of not being listened to. Of feeling so ignored and dismissed no matter what you say that you just want to scream. He tells them, again and again, the truth, and they refuse to listen. Those around him cannot imagine this happening, so they conclude that the only logical explanation is that the man must be lying. His own community gets so mad at him that they run him out of town. While getting kicked out of your community definitely sucks, I wonder if part of him was relieved that he didn’t have to explain himself anymore—especially to folks who were already set on not believing him.
Reading about his community’s treatment of this formerly blind man and hearing his exasperation, I can’t help but get annoyed at the Pharisees for him. How can they not hear the truth when he’s been telling it to them the whole time!? How can they not see what’s right in front of their noses?! How can they be so ignorant and self-righteous?! But then the Spirit gently reminds me of a little thing called humility and asks me to do some self-reflection. In this season of Lent, in this season of spiritual spring cleaning, I am called—we are called—to ask ourselves those same questions we pose to those Pharisees. So I ask us: Who’s story are we not listening to? Who’s witness are we ignoring? What are the questions we should be asking? Do we have the vision—the imagination—to see the unexpected ways God is working in the world in and through our neighbors?
In mulling over these questions, I eventually found my way, as I often do, to one of the works of Brene Brown. Dr. Brown is a professor and researcher at UT Austin who studies shame and vulnerability. In one of her more recent books, she discusses the importance of what she calls “story stewardship.” Here is a portion from her book, Atlas of the Heart. She writes
Story stewardship means honoring the sacred nature of stories—the ones we share and the ones we hear—and knowing that we’ve been entrusted with something valuable or that we have something valuable that we should treat with respect and care.
She goes on to talk about the difference between good and bad story stewardship:
“When we reject the truth of someone’s story—the ultimate failure of story stewardship—it’s often because we’ve stealthily centered ourselves in their story, and the narrative takeover is about protecting our ego, behavior, or privilege.”
What Dr. Brown says is that Instead of making space for what others are telling us—for their story and needs- sometimes we royally miss the mark and end up making their story about ourselves. Or we reject our neighbor’s story because it doesn’t align with what we know to be true – because it doesn’t make sense in our mind. And because of that, sometimes, like the folks we read about in today’s story, we can go as far as ostracizing others from the community.
Good story stewardship, on the other hand, is like holding a baby bird. We recognize the privilege of holding something that precious—so fragile. We are careful to be gentle and kind. As Dr. Brown continues on to say:
We are good stewards of the stories we hear by listening, being curious, affirming, and believing people when they tell us how they experienced something.
The best story stewardship in these moments is to say, “I’m grateful you’re sharing this with me. What does support look like you? I can listen and be with you, I can help problem-solve, or whatever else you need. You tell me.
Given that, It’s so easy for me—and maybe others here–to point at the formerly blind man’s neighbors here and lay blame—to say, Shame on you! You Should have done better story stewardship and actually listened to him. And part of that is true; there is definitely room for improvement in the listening department for them. But what’s harder for us is to do it better—to actually listen.
That is something I’ve learned recently in my pastoral care classes. Before seminary, I always thought I was a good listener—saying “mmhm” or “I hear you” at all the right times and nodding sympathetically throughout. But when I got to seminary, I had to practice listening with people who are essentially professional listeners. Doing that made me realize I wasn’t as great of a listener as I thought. I realized there’s so much more to it than an “mmhm” here and an emphatic head nod there to be a good listener.
I’ve learned that our brains can process language at a rate of 500 words/min when spoken. But Most ppl speak at 150 words/per min. This means that people speak at a slower pace than we can potentially comprehend. And because of that, we listeners can get bored and get distracted. Our minds can wander to thinking of what we’re going to say next or daydream about the double chocolate fudge cake we have waiting for us in the fridge at home. Active listening then takes a lot of concentration. It also requires us to take stock of how we’re feeling while listening to the stories of others and making sure that when we talk, we’re not spewing our own emotions and knee-jerk reactions onto them. Active listening is noticing the language people use to describe how they’re feel and using it alongside them to affirm them. And its about noticing and tagging topics or themes within their story to come back to and ask for a deeper understanding of their story and who they are.
I’m not expecting us to become therapists, chaplains, or a passive dumping ground for all the world’s stories. But I invite us to ask ourselves about our listening and the stories of those around us. Are we listening to the stories of our neighbors? Are we paying attention to the witness that they are telling us—or maybe have been telling us? Are we treating their stories with the same compassion and grace as we treat our own? Are we treating our own stories with that same gentleness we treat the stories of others?
To bring back Brene Brown, she ends her piece with this thought:
Like empathy, story stewardship is not walking in someone else’s shoes; it’s being curious and building narrative trust as they tell you about the experience of being in their own shoes. It’s about believing people when they tell you what an experience meant to them. The…enemy of narrative trust fuels narrative distrust and diminishes the humanity of others and ourselves. Why ourselves? Because when we are reckless with people’s stories, we diminish our own humanity.
So during this Lenten season, may we tend to our own stories and the stories of others. Because God has given each of us a story—each of us a witness—may we listen as Jesus listened. May we ask better questions. May we listen with empathy and compassion to the stories of our neighbors. May we recognize the preciousness of those stories. And may we be sensitive to how God has worked and is currently working in the lives of our neighbors. Especially in those of whom we would never expect to have a story—let alone one that shows glimmers of the Kingdom of God. And especially those of whom we think we already know all their stories. With care and curiosity, let us ask better questions and hear the stories of our neighbors.
Amen